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Missing solemnis: reforming music in schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Malcolm Ross
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Abstract

This paper is intended as a sequel to my earlier paper, ‘What's Wrong with School Music? (BJME 1995, 12, 185-201). It carries an account of recent research into the arts in secondary schools which suggests that, despite National Curriculum reforms and innovations, music still lags behind the other arts in the general esteem of students. The paper proposes that the trouble with music in schools is that it has failed to modernise, that is, that it has somehow been impervious to the creative developments in classical and popular music. Robert Witkin's Art and Social Structure (1995) provides a theoretical account of modernism. The baleful influence of Hymns Ancient and Modern on generations of music teachers is condemned. Cited by way of contrast are two examples of a fully modem music education discovered at the Dartington International Summer School of Music. These, it is argued, capture the participatory ethos promoted in the Anthony Everitt's recent Gulbenkian publication Joining In.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , November 1998 , pp. 255 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

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